The Story of the King Island Wolf Dance, Then and Now

Abstract

In 1982 and again in 1991, the King Island Inupiaq Eskimo community revived the Wolf Dance, which had not been performed in its entirety since 1930. Other Inupiaq communities on the Seward Peninsula and in Northwest Alaska also performed the Wolf Dance (variously referred to as the Eagle-Wolf Dance or the Box Drum Dance), which was inserted into what was called the (Kingston 1999:70-72). The Messenger Feast was celebrated throughout Central Yup'ik and Inupiaq areas of Alaska, with the exceptions of St. Lawrence Island and the Diomede Islands. The general purpose of the Messenger Feast was for headmen or umialit (plural of umialik or boat captain, sometimes referred to as a rich man) from neighboring villages to trade goods with each other. Since relations between villages were generally hostile, the initiation and scheduling of such a feast occurred through messengers. On King Island, the messenger was sometimes a partner to the umialik, who helped the umialik prepare for the feast. After a Messenger Feast was scheduled, it often took more than a year for preparations, since the host village needed to be able to feed its guests for several days. Although the Messenger Feast was found throughout Western Alaska, the Wolf Dance was only found in Inupiaq villages, although there are indications that it was starting to spread into Yup'ik-speaking areas before the turn of the twentieth century (Kingston 1999:73). Although trade was the focus of the Messenger Feasts, there were religious elements in the Wolf Dance itself. In Yup'ik and Inupiaq cosmology, humans and animals existed in equal and reciprocal relationships with each other. Animals allowed themselves to be killed by hunters and their wives who had acted morally (Fienup-Riordan 1994). In return, hunters had to abide by certain rules and rituals in order for the spirits of killed animals to return to their world where they could be reborn. In fact, major Yup'ik and Inupiaq festivals, such as the Yup'ik Bladder Festival, the Inupiaq Whaling Festival, or the King Island Polar Bear Dances, were performed for this very purpose. This is the same with the Wolf Dance: it was performed in order to return the spirits of eagles (and later, other animals) killed by hunters to the spiritual world so they could be reborn. Often, scholars discover that particular dances and rituals are linked to particular myths and legends. This is true for the Wolf Dance, in that communities who performed Wolf Dances also told the Wolf Dance story associated with it. In my research, I found over ten different versions of the Wolf Dance story from King Island and other communities, as well as over ten different accounts of Wolf Dance performances. It is my intention here to concentrate on stories of the Wolf Dance told by King Island community members during the course of my dissertation research.2 I became interested in the Wolf Dance primarily because I wanted to learn and understand King Island Inupiaq singing and dancing traditions. I am half-King Island Inupiaq and grew up in Oregon; learning to sing and dance was a way for me to learn about King Island culture and a way to express King Island identity. I was somewhat intrigued when a couple of community members, including Marie Aakauraq Saclamana and my aunt Margaret Iingaq Penatac, mentioned that the Wolf Dance was dangerous because one of the Wolf Dancers usually died. However, I did not decide to study the Wolf Dance until I discovered that my greatgrandfather, Agnazungaaq (my mother's mother's father, cf. kin chart), told the story to Knud Rasmussen in 1924, during the Fifth Thule Expedition (Rasmussen 1932:17-33; 1952:255-260). I reasoned then that members of my own family would know about the Wolf Dance and could tell me the story. My assumption was borne out when several of my aunts and uncles remembered particular details of the story and the dance as I did the research for my dissertation. In addition, my mother's parallel cousin (my mother's mother's sister's daughter), Lucy Tanaqiq Koyuk, told me a version of the story which I include here. …